Materialism Case

Under my view of materialism what we are is a composed (psychological) mind that is reducible down to fundamental particles with complex causal relations that manifest consciousness within the neural network of the human brain. Science does not harmonize with Christian commitments toward the afterlife, without using implausible and ad-hoc theories. Because of these discrepancies I propose that the proper relationship between science and Christianity is that of conflict.

To support my thesis I will outline the various materialist theories about our ‘deeper kind’ and highlight some of the societal implications that can be derived from particular viewpoints. From there I will assess how the various theories do with accommodating the commitments of science and Christianity. Using my findings I will provide an overall assessment of the feasibility of Christian Materialism and outline the various proposed relationships between science and religion, before giving reason to support my chosen relationship of conflict between Christianity and science.

To begin it is important to outline the notion of a deeper kind and lay out the distinction between essential and accidental properties. An individual is simply something that exists over time and consists of many properties, many of which can change over time; except for a special set of essential properties. Any individual falls under many different kinds, but this individual only has one deeper kind that fixes its nature, including all of its kind-derived essential properties, and no individual ever changes its deeper kind.

An essential property of an individual is one that the individual cannot lack and survive. For example, in the case of a triangle essential properties would be things like having three corners, three straight sides, etc. By referring to essential properties, one answers in the most basic way the question: What kind of thing is x? If x loses its essential properties, x ceases to exist. Accidental properties on the other hand can be absent without destroying the individual, examples are color or location. If something has an accidental property of being red, it could just as well be brown and still exist as the same ‘kind’ of thing. Individuals causally act in virtue of their properties.

Understanding what our deeper kind is entails figuring out what it means to be a person. And answering questions such as; is being a person the same thing as being a human? Are people reducible to or emergent upon their genetic makeup? Do genetic links or predispositions imply that humans have no free will or moral responsibility? A person's view about these questions will inform their ethics at the edges of life. To highlight this I will present a popular argument justifying abortion by the philosopher Tibor Machan, in which he displays his materialist account of our deeper kind:

The killing of a zygote or a fetus prior to the development